[PLUG] wtf? system out of entropy

[sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>]

hey plug,

thought i'd fire off a mail here in case anyone has something to
add while i do some research on my own...

i have a server which has run dry of entropy to /dev/random, and
i can't get it to refill this, which sucks since there are fairly
important services that depend on reading a byte or two from
it during startup.

reading through a few online docs, i see that the linux kernel
historically uses 4 sources for rebuilding entropy:

- keyboard interrupts
- mouse interrupts
- ide timing/interrupts/accesses
- network traffic

but i've heard that lately, the network traffic has been removed
from this list due to malicious attackers being able to poison
the PRNG with specially timed packets.

the system doesn't use IDE drives, it uses SCSI.  filesystem activity
doesn't seem to help too much...

the system is in a datacenter, and has no mouse.

i've tried furiously banging on the keyboard, like a monkey trying
to write shakespeare, but no new entropy is added nor have i recreated
any sonnets.

i'm at the point that i may very well just give up and reboot the
system, but wonder if anyone here has ever come across this problem,
and/or knows of a way to start getting bytes back into the
pool.


thanks,
	sean

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